Tired player spices up errand run with Lottery scratch-offs, gets $30,000 surprise
She was weary and didn’t feel like going out, but since she had errands to run, a Maryland Lottery player from Fort Washington decided she might as well buy a few instant tickets. The result, a $30,000 top-prize win on a $3 game, woke her up.
“I was so tired Saturday, but I had to go to the store. I said, ‘Let me play my Lottery numbers,’” the winner said on Dec. 7 when she claimed her prize at Maryland Lottery headquarters.
When she plays scratch-offs, her preference is generally for those in the $5 and up range, the winner said, adding, “I was being cheap.”
Her excursion took her to the shopping center at 7072 Allentown Road in Temple Hills for groceries and a stop at S&W Liquors, where she purchased a $2 scratch-off plus a $3 Peppermint Payout Multiplier instant ticket.
She scratched off the $2 instant ticket without finding a win. Then, she moved on to the Peppermint Payout Multiplier game and didn’t believe what she saw. “I said, ‘This is not me. I swear, this ticket says $30,000. I had chills,’” the player recounted.
Uncertain of what she was seeing, she asked the workers behind the counter for help. An employee gave her the verdict, saying “Congratulations!”
The winner didn’t know what to do next, so an employee gave her great advice. He told her to sign the back of the instant ticket immediately and snap photos of its front and back with her phone. The Lottery also suggests keeping winning tickets in a safe location until the player can claim the prize.
“I had bubble-guts,” the player remembers, “It was a happy moment for me. A blessing.”
Unsure what to do next, she called her son (who accompanied her to claim the prize). He did not pick up, but he did call her back. This time, he said, she did not pick up. They exchanged some excited text messages and then she went home. “I had to put it away so I wouldn’t keep looking at it,” the winner recalled.
The Prince George’s County resident plans to put the money in the bank until she can “think of how to handle it the right way.” She is sure she will share some of the windfall with her church and “a little family circle.”
For selling a top-prize winning scratch-off, S&W Liquors in Temple Hills receives a Lottery bonus of $300, equal to 1% of the prize.
The Peppermint Payout Multiplier scratch-off, which has a peppermint scent, went on sale on Oct. 23. The winner found the first of six $30,000 top prizes available. There are 677 prizes remaining at the second-tier $500 level, 3,441 at the $100 level as well as 657,000 at the $3, $10, $20 and $50 levels. The Holiday Cash Second-Chance promotion now in progress also gives players chances to win $5,000 to $100,000 by entering non-winning holiday scratch-offs and three holiday-themed FAST PLAY tickets into the promotion.
